LCHS senior Dylan Poulsen is the first LCHS student to be a referee and umpire for high school and college games for 3 years running. He has officiated the student/faculty game, Limestone basketball, several Notre Dame and Richwoods games, and ICC versus Bradley intramurals.

He stated that some challenges he faced while getting into the field were, “Learning who to talk to and who not to talk to, and one of the hardest challenges was when I was so young doing basketball and a lot of people didn’t like how I refereed, and how I didn’t put up with anything.  If you’re young, you’re gonna end up getting yelled at. If a coach knows you’re young they’re gonna try getting as much as they can out of you.”

“The money is always nice, you get to travel.  I’ve done games in Bloomington and Springfield. And in January I went to Detroit for an MLB camp. The exercise is great, and I love getting to meet a lot of good people,” said Poulsen.  And he wishes fans wouldn’t complain about calls just because it’s bad for their team, and he wants them to not take it too seriously.

Inspired by his father, who was also a referee, Poulsen said that he highly suggests getting into the field.  A person can begin at age 15 and should visit IHSA.com to apply and join an association. To get hired an individual has to either go through an association, the Central Illinois Umpire Association, or an assigner.

Poulsen would like to continue to officiate in his future career.  He said he would prefer baseball, but if not he would like to referee for the NFL.